“Hmm… he isn’t as helpful and cooperative as you. At least he never placed any human being in his eyes.”

“It’s expected,” I shrugged, “after all he isn’t entirely a human anymore. Besides, all of his strength came from that race and not from being a human. I think he might even hate himself for being born as a human.”

“He once told me this,” she nodded, confirming what I guessed already.

“But that doesn’t count as a weakness.”

“If you looked up at it from another angle, then it is,” she said and I got what she meant.

“It’s hard to prove he isn’t a human. No one of his forces is going to believe me.”

I knew what she wanted to say here. Having a leader that wasn’t a human or wasn’t on the side of humans was something enough to drive most of his forces away.

But history proved how cunning and cautious this dude was. After all, he succeeded in building a kingdom in my time.

“Hmm… I can’t recall anything remarkable about his weakness.”

“Then how come you defeated him once?” She told me this before. Out of five times they both clashed together, one ended up in her victory.

“That’s… I don’t frankly know the reason,” she seemed struggling to give me an answer.

“Tell me, when did you meet him before? I mean considering the time of the apocalypse.”

“All past quest fifteen,” she instantly replied, “out of the five times, the one I defeated him was when I met up with him at quest fifteen.”

“Hmm… Interesting.”

“You got an idea or what?” she looked up at me with anticipation, but I shook my head.

“It’s just a feeling, nothing more,” I lied. After all, what she said matched what I knew about him.

Ed didn’t shine before quest ten, didn’t expand to the central zone until quest twenty or something. Facing him in quest fifteen proved this. And it also proved how wrong his timing this time was.

He wanted to meet up with me at quest five? That was too soon for him. If nothing new happened, then he was destined to lose.

Thinking about this calmed my thoughts for a bit. I started to slowly think about what I learnt about him from her. She told me he had such a unique ability from his god and cultivation.

But didn’t these two need time to bring out results? Even if he was destined to grow strong, this would take much more time than just five quests.

I recalled what Ed said. He belittled my achievements, bragging that he did that before. According to what history recorded about him, he didn’t kill a paragon before.

All foes he fought against were just of archlord calibre. This was logical though. After all, paragons seemed to sit back and watch the initial fighting going on between their archlords and other races’ archlords.

This meant the strongest foes he might have killed so far would be archlords. Would that be threatening to me? In fact I doubted it.

Did he have another hidden weapon up his sleeve? Or did he receive external help from his god?

There was another option that I excluded almost instantly. He couldn’t be the kind to underestimate his enemies out of his ego and pride.

If I had to choose, then I’d place my bets over the help from his god. If he got the help of his god, then why wouldn’t I receive the help from mine?

Sith already left me a recording about his thoughts about my future cultivation path. I listened to it already and got lots of inspiration regarding what I should do.

But I never had a chance to think thoroughly about the questions that recording stirred up. In fact I never took the issue of cultivation seriously until now.

If there was a way to turn tables around against Ed then it would be through my cultivation. However…

I had both my hands busy with everything for a long time. I had to organise my forces and sent part out to claim the areas around my capital. Also I needed people to stand here in protection.

Then I’d have to go and enter that dungeon. After that there was my meeting with Fang and Wryly, and that big war.

After that war I might have a chance to sit idle and think about my cultivation. If things went smoothly for me, then I’d be able to do that in just the middle of quest three.

If things went south, then I might reach the early stages of the fourth quest before I’d have time to think about my cultivation.

“He asked me to meet up with him at the golden quest… Do you know how I can get that kind of quest?” This was something extra important for me.

Golden quests… The first time I heard about them was just before coming here. The old man told me to look for his race and help them out at golden quests.

After all this time in the apocalypse, I started to learn more about the real situation of the old man’s race. That race wasn’t living exactly in the universe.

It was trapped in a separate time loop as I understood. So how could golden quests help me save that race? Or the real question should be how the golden quests help me meet this race?

“It’s easy for you,” unlike what I expected, Hilary seemed confident about my ability to access golden quests, “after all golden quests are given as a prize for your overall performance in the previous quests.”

“Like an evaluation?” I asked and she nodded.

“The system marks every five quests as an evaluation for everyone,” she explained, “so at quest five, and considering your current achievement so far, I’m sure you’ll be able to get access to the golden quest.”

“But I’m not going to take part in quest three or four…” I paused as this was something unexpected for me. If the system was going to evaluate my progress and performance at the prior quests, then it was challenging for me to gain access to the golden quest.